Books » Blue Note Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff [Paperback]

Blue Note Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff

Author: Charlie Lourie
Publication Date: November 4, 2000

Description
Following the success of Rizzoli's The Blue Note Years, the treasured archive of Francis Wolff photographs has been opened once again to present a previously unseen collection of dynamic images. Included aer never-before-published color images from Wolff's later years of photography. This volume is a collection of the jazz photographs taken from 1941 to 1968 by Francis Wolff, cofounder of Blue Note Records, to document the world's most famous jazz label.

Vignettes tell the story of Blue Note Records; its founders, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff; recording master, Rudy Van Gelder; and many of the labels' great artists ─ Jimmy Smith, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Joe Henderson, and Art Blakey, among others.

Books» The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz [Paperback]

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz 
Editors: Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler
Publication Date: April 1, 2007

Book Description
Do you want to know when Duke Ellington was king of The Cotton Club? Have you ever wondered how old Miles Davis was when he got his first trumpet?

From birth dates to gig dates and from recordings to television specials, Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler have left no stone unturned in their quest for accurate, detailed information on the careers of 3.300 jazz musicians from around the world. We learn that Duke Ellington worked his magic at The Cotton Club from 1927 to 1931, and that on Miles Davis' thirteenth birthday, his father gave him his first trumpet. Jazz is fast moving, and this edition clearly and concisely maps out an often dizzying web of professional associations.

Books» To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road [Paperback]

"To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road"

Authors: Wynton Marsalis, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
Publication Date: November 8, 2005

Description
In To a Young Jazz Musician, the renowned jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize—winning composer Wynton Marsalis gives us an invaluable guide to making good music–and to leading a good life. Writing from the road “between the bus ride, the sound check, and the gig,” 

Marsalis passes on wisdom gained from experience, addressed to a young musician coming up–and to any of us at any stage of life. He writes that having humility is a way to continue to grow, to listen, and to learn; that patience is necessary for developing both technical proficiency and your own art rather than an imitation of someone else’s; and that rules are indispensable because “freedom lives in structure.”

Books» Blue Note Records: The Biography [Hardcover]

Blue Note Records: The Biography [Hardcover]

Author: Richard Cook

Description:
The first book ever to chronicle the most famous and influential jazz label of them all, from its beginning to the present day. Blue Note is a label that stands for more than just the extraordinary music in its catalogue. The label's story has hitherto been told only through collections of art and photography, foregrounding the label as an arbiter of style that continues to have great influence. Francis Wolff's photography, coupled with Reid Miles' designs, set an unrepeatable standard which has become a classic design symbol. But of course it was not only style and elegance in design that set Blue Note apart; Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins and - perhaps the archetypal Blue Note group - Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers all made their most significant early recordings under the auspices of the Blue Note genius. The body of this book is a detailed history of the label from its beginnings in 1939, its development, rise, fall and rebirth. Also included is a parallel analysis of all the major records released by the label throughout its history. (This text refers to the Paperback edition)

Books» The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond [Paperback]

The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond [Paperback]


Author: Joachim-Ernst Berendt
Editor: Gunther Huesmann
Publication Date: March 1, 1992


Description
The most comprehensive interpretive history of jazz available in one volume, this book contains a survey of the past and current styles, elements, instruments, musicians, singers, and big bands of jazz.

Books» The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography [Hardcover]

The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography [Hardcover]

Author: Lee Tanner
Publication Date: November 1, 2006

Description
The great improvisational American jazz musicians of the mid-20th century inspired a generation of photographers to develop a looser, moodier style of visual expression. That evocative approach is on striking display in The Jazz Image. Covering six decades of performers —from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to John Coltrane and Miles Davis—this unique collection is as much a comprehensive catalogue of jazz greats as it is a salute to the photographers who captured them.

Lee Tanner, a leading authority on jazz photography, has selected works—by such noted jazz photographers as Herman Leonard, Bob Willoughby, Milt Hinton, and Bill Claxton—that are iconic, candid, explosive, and intimate. They provide a simultaneous look at jazz, photography, and America from 1935 into the 1990s.

Books: The Jazz Theory Book [Spiral-bound]

The Jazz Theory Book [Spiral-bound]

Author: Mark Levine
Publication Date: June 1, 1995


Description
Endorsed by Jamey Aebersold, James Moody, Dave Liebman, and others, The Jazz Theory Book presents all the information any student of jazz needs in an easy-to-understand, yet thorough, manner. For intermediate to advanced players, and written by one of the acknowledged masters of jazz, it is used by universities around the world.

Books: The History of Jazz [Paperback]

The History of Jazz [Paperback]
Author: Ted Gioia
Publication Date: May 9, 2011

Description
Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic--acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present.

Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history--Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie's advocacy of modern jazz in the 1940s, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the current day.

Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. He also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after hours spots of corrupt Kansas city, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born.

Books: The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums [Paperback]

The Penguin Jazz Guide:
The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums [Paperback]

Authors: Brian Morton & Richard Cook
Publication Date: December 28, 2010

Description
"The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings" is firmly established as the world's leading guide to recorded jazz, a mine of fascinating information and a source of insightful - often wittily trenchant - criticism. This is something rather different: Brian Morton (who taught American history at UEA) has picked out the 1000 best recordings that all jazz fans should have and shows how they tell the history of the music and with it the history of the twentieth century. He has completely revised his and Richard Cook's entries and reassessed each artist's entry for this book. The result is an endlessly browsable companion that will prove required reading for aficionados and jazz novices alike. 'It's the kind of book that you'll yank off the shelf to look up a quick fact and still be reading two hours later' - "Fortune". 'Part jazz history, part jazz Karma Sutra with Cook and Morton as the knowledgeable, urbane, wise and witty guides ...This is one of the great books of recorded jazz; the other guides don't come close' - "Irish Times".

Product Details
Paperback: 768 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 28, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 014104831X
ISBN-13: 978-0141048314
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches

Editorial review about the author ~amazon.com
Brian Morton is a freelance writer and broadcaster who for many years presented Radio 3's jazz magazine Impressions and In Tune. He has also broadcasted extensively on BBC Radio Scotland. Richard Cook (1957 - 2007) was formerly editor of The Wire and edited Jazz Review. He contributed to many other publications, including the New Statesman and his books included Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopaedia and It's About That Time: Miles Davis on Record.

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Books: Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series) [Paperback]

Author: Paul F. Berliner

Description
Series: Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology | Publication Date: October 17, 1994
A landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea.

Books: Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz [Paperback]

Author: John Szwed

Description
Anyone interested in learning about a distinct musicjazzwill welcome this newest addition to the popular 101 reference series. Noted anthropologist, critic, and musical scholar John F. Szwed takes readers on a tour of the musics tangled history and explores how it developed from an ethnic music to become North Americas most popular music and then part of the avant garde in less than fifty years. Jazz 101 presents the key figures, history, theory, and controversies that shaped its development, along with a discussion of some of its most important recordings.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Hyperion (August 23, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0786884967
ISBN-13: 978-0786884964
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 1 inches

Editorial Review About the Author ~amazon.com
John F. Szwed is currently a professor of anthropology, African and African-American studies, music, and American studies at Yale University. He has written eight books on music and African-American culture and numerous articles and reviews on related subjects. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowship. He lives in Trumbull, Connecticut.

Customer Reviews:
By C. Williamson (USA) ~amazon.com
Those who really want an excellent book on the history of jazz should eschew Ken Burns' incomplete doorstop of a picture book and turn to John F. Szwed's compact and comprehensive volume. In only a little over 300 pages, Szwed succinctly and skilfully covers the entire spectrum of jazz, offering the reader everything and looking askance at nothing. Though opinionated at times (and who could not be, writing a book of this sort), Szwed is never judgmental, and his knowledge of the field and its many aspects is broad and sweeping without seeming superficial. And please note that this isn't just a book for jazz newbies -- I've been a jazz fan for many years, with a huge collection of records, CDs and books, and I still learned a lot. Szwed's illuminative sidebars on individual songs and albums had me pulling out some old favorites and hearing them with fresh ears. This volume belongs on the shelf of every jazz buff.

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Books: DownBeat - The Great Jazz Interviews (A 75th Anniversary Anthology)

Description
Culled from the DownBeat archives - includes in-depth interviews with literally every great jazz artist and personality that ever lived! Features classic photos and magazine covers from DownBeat's vast archives. In honor of its 75th anniversary, DownBeat's editors have brought together in this one volume the best interviews, insights, and photographs from the illustrious history of the world's top jazz magazine, DownBeat. This anthology includes the greatest of DownBeat's Jazz Hall of Famers: from early legends like Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman; to bebop heroes like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Miles Davis; to truly unique voices like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk; to the pioneers of the electric scene like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, and Joe Zawinul. The Great Jazz Interviews delivers the legends of jazz, talking about America's music and America itself, in their own words.

Product Details
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Hal Leonard; 75th edition (November 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1423463846
ISBN-13: 978-1423463849
Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches

Customer Reviews:

By Barry McCanna (Normandy, France) ~amazon.com
The word "jazz" covers a multitude of sins, and this handsome anthology, which spans the years 1935 to 2008, manages to cover most of them, at the rate of a dozen selected interviews a year. So it can be read from cover to cover, or you can browse to your heart's content. There are some surprising juxtapositions; Glenn Miller is followed by Joe "King" Oliver, and John Coltrane by Mahalia Jackson. Some appear twice; Armstrong, Ellington and Goodman, for example, others not at all. You'll find Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole, but neither Crosby nor Astaire. An index would have been welcome, but that is to look a gift horse in the mouth.

By Barbara R. Breger "chicago granny" (Chicago, IL USA) ~amazon.com
This is a wonderful book of interviews of musicians who have contributed to our only native music. This should be in every jazz lover's collection. I highly recommend it.

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